


Fall In Eloquence

by WolfVenom



Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Injury, Drabble, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Knives, Maybe Second Chapter, Mental Anguish, POV Third Person, Poisoning, Relationships if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11263464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfVenom/pseuds/WolfVenom
Summary: To fall and to fall once more, never to get back on your feet again. Grab him by the ankle and pull him down with you to Hell, have tea with him there.(Universe mashup of Arkham Knight and Under the Red Hood.)





	Fall In Eloquence

**Author's Note:**

> shrug emoji

It was the Arkham Knight that stood between him and Gotham's freedom. The same Knight who abducted Oracle and tried to kill Tim, nearly repeating the devastation the last Robin's death brought about. Bruce decided at that time that he had to go, for no one threatened his team like that again. 

 

He was a slippery fellow, but Bruce knew how to catch those kinds of vermin, and though the rat knew most of his tips and tricks, the Bat would always be a step ahead. Knight was good with a rifle, but that only went so far as to when you  _ had  _ something to hit. Adhering to the shadows and vents seemed to aggravate the Arkham Knight and spooked him to higher ground, where Bruce could easily grapple up and disarm him. Hopefully without major injuries, Arkham Asylum should get it's knight back in one piece. 

 

“Sit still, Bruce! I don't want to shoot you somewhere vital on the first try,” the distorted voice called, masked in the darkness, “we are gonna take your fall from grace slow and painful, you and I.”

 

Batman hissed, bowing his head below a broken truss and scanning for heat signatures in his perimeter. A sniper needed to be stationary taking the shot, and Bruce made sure to never stick in one spot longer than a heartbeat. Keeping the Arkham Knight on his toes would tire him out and render guns useless, drawing out a melee battle between the two. Batman was confident enough that he would win that. He always did. 

  
  


Besides, the Knight was too cocky to play it smart during the battle, wrapping himself up in flaunting his knowledge of Batman's gear. Those modifications were years old, and Lucius had made many improvements since then. Just because this egotistical mercenary had his fighting style down to a science didn't mean he would expect tricks like the Bird Call. 

 

One press on his utility belt called the swallow, Nightwing inbound. It would of course take a quarter of an hour for his ward to make it. Taunting the Knight into close quarters would allow Nightwing an easier way to apply stealth to his attack. 

 

Batman pulled his grapple from his hip and rolled behind a crate, aiming through for the lip of the railing where the red dot of the laser sight peeked from behind a pole. He would have to knock Arkham Knight from the edge to the vents below, prompting his CQC. 

 

Using the leverage of the wire, Bruce swung up and around from below the catwalk, feeling his boots connect with an armoured shoulder. A single growl of surprise and both men tumbled down from the railings in a headlock, sniper rifle discarded above in the surprise attack. 

 

The serrated teeth on his gauntlets dug into his foe and pulled a scream from his throat, heavily mechanized through the visor. When the two hit pavement, the Knight fell headfirst, snapping the tip of one of the ears off his helmet in a sound that sounded eerily like bones. Reinforced spinal guards prevented fatal breaks, Bruce noted. 

 

Arkham Knight wobbled to his feet, panting heavily and reaching for the dagger strapped to his pelvis. He fumbled, that much was clear, and Batman noticed the heavy cracking along the visor, causing glitched data to skirt and dance across the face. His heat signature and x-ray sights were malfunctioning. 

 

“Oh, not cool old man. Not cool. It took me quite a bit of bargaining to design this get up,” Knight twirled his hunting dagger around his fingers like a cheap bar trick, “and like always, you sit back and let your  _ pets _ take care of it!” 

 

Bruce had to physically restrain himself from calling out as the Knight whipped around and tossed his knife through the air, effectively hitting Nightwing - hanging from the catwalk in waiting - directly in the shoulder. 

 

_ My favourite place to cut up.  _

 

He fell with a shout, though as always on his feet, rolling into secure position. Nightwing didn't seem too affected, he winced as he pulled out the weapon, but cracked his neck and prepared for more. Bruce let himself relax. 

 

“Nightwing, glad you could join us, pal,” hissed the Knight. 

 

“I'm not your pal, you bastard.”

 

“And here I thought we could be friends again, like back then. No matter, the more the merrier,” he pulled an empty vial from his breast pouch, “you're as much at fault as he is, I'll enjoy watching you suffer.”

 

The vial ended up at Batman’s feet, and he picked it up warily. Along the sides were written chemical formulas and one name that stopped him dead. 

 

_ Heavy dose of Nightshade. Use only on weapons.  _

 

Bruce glanced back up and over Arkham Knight’s shoulder, staring at Nightwing. He was breathing more heavily, clutching his wound and attempting to maintain eye contact, but his eyes remained unfocused and diluted. Opening up his vital scanner, Bruce saw the regulation of blood inside his body was affected by his wildly beating heart. And more pumps meant more blood spilling from his shoulder. 

 

Seething, Batman grappled above the Knight to where Nightwing stood shaking, glaring at his enemy as said foe straightened and crossed his arms in a mocking manner. A push of the trigger and Bruce lifted them both up to the catwalks, laying Nightwing down. 

 

“Don't move, deep breaths, I'll call Alfred and have the plane pick you up.”

 

Knight was ready for him when Batman jumped back down, brass knuckles on one hand and a pistol in the other. 

 

“Shame about Dick. I was expecting your other boy wonder to meet that knife. I've always kinda liked Nightwing, pity he won't make it,” Bruce readied his fists, snarling, “I mean, you could kill me in return, right? You could avenge him and take one less baddie out of Gotham, two robins, one stone… 

 

“But that wouldn't be fair to  _ me _ !” he snapped, dashing forward with a fist pulled back. Bruce readied his parry, pulling on the wrist meant for his face to throw his assailant off balance, then using his opposite elbow to ram him towards the floor. He retaliated easily, of course, rolling to the left and firing two shots towards the Bat’s legs, both of which evaded. 

 

Out of the corner of his cowl, Bruce heard the amplified groaning of Nightwing, and rage pumped through his attacks, bringing a boot to the Knight’s belly, then a fist, then a batarang, another kick and a headbutt. Bizarrely, the Arkham Knight did not fight back, but his visor cracked more and more with each hit and flaked off around his chin. Only when Batman aimed another kick to his face did the Knight catch it, pulling his leg up and around to trip him to the floor. Bruce howled and grabbed a crowbar laying idly on the floor, and took insane pleasure in taking advantage of the sudden hesitation in the Knight's attacks and whipping him across the face with the blunt end. 

 

Of course, once he noticed the Knight struggling to get up, not because of wounds or pride but in fear, he dropped the weapon and took a step back, terrified of his brief outburst of rage. He did not kill, but he damn well came close to it, had the visor not been intact. 

 

Which couldn't be said of it now. Bruce stared at the Knight’s back, breathing heavily and prepared to apprehend him to the GCPD, but shuffled movement had him back on the defensive once more. 

 

In a flurry the man jumped to his feet and procured a shiv from his boot, not at all fragile like prison shanks or handcrafted blades. 

 

“Finish what you started, Wayne!” the voice was no longer modulated, and Bruce hardly had the strength left to hold the block as half of the famed Arkham Knight’s face came into view. 

 

Scarred, sculpted, rage and a fleeting glimpse akin to fear in his eyes and a jagged  _ J  _ burned across the side of his face. 

 

“ _ Jason!” _

 

Bruce looked up at Nightwing calling from the trusses and missed the stab aimed for his throat, instead ducking back down and snatching the weapon from Jaso--  _ Arkham Knight’s  _ hand. Confusion, sorrow, fear, anger, pain. Bruce aimed the shiv at the abdomen of his once-Robin and hissed. 

 

“You… Whoever you are… Take my kids face off of your façade or I will gut you…” Bruce growled, surprising even himself with the remark. 

 

Todd smirked, blood from a broken nose dribbling into his mouth.  _ Broken in the fall _ . 

 

“Do it. Finish what  _ He _ couldn't. I  _ despise  _ you, Bruce. Your boy scout morals and your no killing code and your stoic vigilante attitude. Remember when you nearly pulled a gun on Chill? Do it. Do it now and bleed me out like the Joker did before.

 

“Sheila did it, Catherine did it, Natalia did it, and especially  _ you.” _

 

_ “Bruce, help him!” came Dick’s voice, “save my Jaybird!” _

 

The memories and confusion and shock of seeing a face long dead and realization of the murder that followed him hung in the air, buzzing in the back of his brain like a head full of wasps. Both Jason and Dick’s voices drowned and he stared, bewildered, at the man his son had become, and he--

 

_ Felt the resistance of blade through flesh, the screaming of Nightwing and the laughing of Jason, cigarette smoke and mint heavy on his breath and soon metallic as blood pooled below his tongue as he pushed himself further onto the blade at his belly, felt gloved fingers drenched in his own blood carve a matching  _ J  _ on Bruce’s opposite cheek below the stitching of the cowl.  _

 

_ Atropine. It wasn't deadly. The vial didn't have any residue in it. There was no nightshade on the dagger, only atropine itself. Concentrated, low. Talia had nightshade in her garden at the League, he remembered.  _

 

The body hit the floor and Jason sighed giddily, looking at Bruce through one bloodshot eye. 

 

“How does it feel to be just like him?”

 

The Arkham Knight’s grand plan. Choking to death on the blood gathering in clots in his throat and laughing through the pain at the agony is Batman’s eyes. 

 

“ _ This time, make sure I  _ stay  _ in that grave. Because if you don't, I'll crawl right back out and skin all your little robins alive.” _

 

Bruce collected Dick and left. 

  
  


\---

**Author's Note:**

> cat face emoji 
> 
> emotional screaming in drabble format. I originally planned to have this be OOC angst where Bruce is emotionally stunted and Jason is all forgiving in his end but you know what fuck it.


End file.
